Why The Plot Twist in Dark Knight Rises Got Everyone

Ok "everyone" is a bit strong but many seasoned comic fans familiar with the source material really didn't see the twist coming...but we should have.

This is my first spoiler blog so if you haven't seen the movie yet you should probably stop reading right about now.

You gone yet?

How about now?

Ok, just to really REALLY give you time to not get to the spoiler here's a random Batman video to keep you occupied and kill space at the top of my entry.  Y'know, just so that any major details don't show up when this gets posted to Facebook and Google+.





Hehehe, that should do it.  Now I'm certain the people who really want to read this are still here (and to those of you that endured that and are still here you're a stronger person than I).

Now, topic at hand.  It was revealed as Batman took down Bane and is screaming at him to tell him where the bomb trigger is that Miranda Tate was actually Talia Al Ghul.  She was the child that escaped the pit and Bane was her protector.  The collective "oooohs" I heard when this happened let me know that the twist hit the mark.

Anyone familiar with Batman and his story is well aware of Ra's Al Ghul and Batman's relationship (yeah, they totally did it) with Talia.  It was kind of an obvious lead up since there was all this talk of Ra's Legacy and the League of Shadows.  Not knowing much about Bane's history Batman was led to the conclusion (in the movie) that Bane was Ra's Al Ghul's son.  You heard that right.  Apparently the scheme was so masterful even Batman, the world's greatest detective, was fooled.

Here's my reasoning why the twist actually worked. We're currently in the Golden Age of comic book movies.  There was a time where any movie based on a comic book was a guaranteed flop.  The reason they flopped: Hollywood Spin.  Every time they got their hands on a really good character they'd add so much crap in order to shoe horn the whole thing into an hour and a half the end result was a jumbled mess that would win the revile of every true fan of the source material.  Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is a standout piece of work and thanks to Marvel producing their own movies they've been able to save a ton of their beloved characters.  The younger audience has no idea the stuff that came out of Hollywood before the days of Spider-man (going with the Tobey version here).  The really sad thing is it happened almost exclusively with DC and Marvel characters.  Point being we're too used to having crazy change ups that Hollywood make to our favorite characters just to make a story flow or to fit a wider audience (remember the organic web shooters?).  That's why up until the moment of the reveal we were all comfortable with Bane being Ra's son even though we know full well that he had a daughter in the comics.